"Joining the Linux Foundation is one of many ways Valve is investing in the advancement of Linux gaming," Mike Sartain, a key member of the Linux team at Valve said. "Through these efforts we hope to contribute tools for developers building new experiences on Linux, compel hardware manufacturers to prioritize support for Linux, and ultimately deliver an elegant and open platform for Linux users."

Mark my words: Valve will do for Linux gaming what Android did for Linux mobile. Much crow will be eaten by naysayers in a few years.

Back in 2009~2010 the Linux kernel, and several other components of the GNU ecosystem, was all but suitable for mobile (even today it still do not sorted off his power management issues in laptops, just to give a idea), and with the tight schedules of product shipping these days, there was no time to play the politics required to adapt all components and push back the patches to community before using.

Valve on other hand don't need to do any of that. The changes that Valve needs to to on Linux are minimal. His distro will be desktop oriented, all components needed for gaming development is already in place, and developing software on Linux these days is a bliss. The only thing lacking is a descent display server, but this is questionable. Perhaps better IDEs are needed, but this is a non-issue for many developers, more a matter of taste and development style.

No, it didn't have to split to thrive. Android was created as a closed system, they didn't care about Linux community or any synergy with it. Then Google bought it and "opened" it somewhat. But the split remained.

You have similar "splits" all over. From distributions not using vanilla-Kernel as default to desktop to ... everything. This is not a bug but a feature. Allow, no support, all kind of people and groups to innovate on top and if something turns out to be useful work on getting the concepts upstream, back into mainline.

Android is a prime-example. It did modify vanilla, everybody does. It innovated successfully, new concepts, like improved power management. These concepts, read not just the patches, made it step by step back into vanilla.

This is why Linux beats every competition out there. Unlimited innovation, rework patches, make them even better, less dirty, cover more cases, with a focus for future innovation, and bring them into mainline.

The best innovation driven by requirements possible. And here comes another player, Valve, and does the same. They profit from all that. Steambox will eat lesser power cause of work done before with Android. Compared to Android we already know that Valve is innovating, driving new concepts and requirements in. Its going to be good for Valve and Linux mainline. Win, win, again and again.

Back in 2009~2010 the Linux kernel, and several other components of the GNU ecosystem, was all but suitable for mobile (even today it still do not sorted off his power management issues in laptops, just to give a idea), and with the tight schedules of product shipping these days, there was no time to play the politics required to adapt all components and push back the patches to community before using.

TomTom had been shipping plenty of mobile devices running Linux, and so did many other vendors, so this is large overstated.

Valve on other hand don't need to do any of that. The changes that Valve needs to to on Linux are minimal. His distro will be desktop oriented, all components needed for gaming development is already in place, and developing software on Linux these days is a bliss. The only thing lacking is a descent display server, but this is questionable. Perhaps better IDEs are needed, but this is a non-issue for many developers, more a matter of taste and development style.